“Edwin?” she goes. I try not to make any noise. She gets off the bed and gets on her hands and knees and lowers her head so she can see. “What’s the matter?” she asks. Honey?”
I wish I were Gus. “I hurt my face,” I tell her.
“What’d you do?” she asks. She reaches a hand under and touches it.
“Rubbed it too hard,” I tell her.
“Oh, Edwin,” she goes.
I slide out and sit up next to her. Tell her about it, the baby part of me goes. I can just imagine Flake’s face. “Oh, Ma,” I go.
She hugs me. “It’s okay,” she goes.
“What is?” I go.
“Whatever it is,” she says. She rubs circles on my back. “Sometimes we can’t handle stuff,” she tells me. “Sometimes it’s just too much.”
“I can handle anything,” I tell her.
“Well, don’t get mad,” she says. “What’re you getting mad for?”
“I’m gonna take a shower,” I go. I get up.
“Wait. What’re you getting mad about?” she says.
“Thanks,” I go.
“Honey, you’re just a little guy,” she tells me. “Don’t take everything so hard.”
“Wait,” she says.
I shut the bathroom door behind me and turn the shower on.
“Shit,” she says.
She finally asks through the bathroom door if we can talk tomorrow, and when I say yes she goes downstairs. I turn off the shower and listen. After I’m sure she’s not coming back I dry off and climb into bed naked. I get a hard-on. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” I say to it.
I’m still sniffing and crying. I can’t even stay in bed. It feels like there are bugs in it. Every time I pull the sheets down and turn on the lights, there’s nothing there. I take another shower. I sit in the tub and let the water pound my head until it starts to get cold and I have to turn it off.
I have these weird, dozy, half-dreams sitting in my chair. In one I’m a cowboy. When I remember it it’s a little embarrassing I made myself a cowboy.
I go to the window. Down the street, a few lights are still on.
What will it be like on Saturday? Or a week from Saturday?
I walk all over the room. Sometimes I get down in a squat and press my hands together until they shake. Then I get up again and keep walking.
I grab the phone and dial the first three numbers of our number and then anything, any other four numbers. An answering machine picks up. “Welcome to Target World,” I go after the beep, and then I hang up.
It’s no fun, though, so I don’t do it again.
I go back to the chair. I go back under the bed. This is unreal, I think. This is unreal. But then I think that when people say something’s unreal, they just mean it’s too real.
“Your brother’s upset,” my mom says at breakfast. Gus is crying in the bathroom.
“About what?” I go.
“He can’t find his ball,” she says. “You seen it?”
I nod. “I’ll find it,” I go. I’ll buy him another one, I figure. They have them at the drugstore, and I can ride my bike there.
“Nice way to start the day,” my dad says, sitting down next to me. Gus hears him and starts wailing.
“Don’t make fun of him,” my mom tells him.
“I’m not making fun of him,” my dad goes. “I’m just commenting on our happy home.” She pours him some coffee. “Did he look outside?” he asks.
“He says he looked all over,” my mom tells him.
“I looked all over,” Gus says from the bathroom.
“And how are you today?” my dad asks me.
“I’m good,” I tell him.
“You look great,” he tells me back.
“I think I know where his ball is,” I tell my mom.
“Well, tell him that,” she says. She walks over to the bathroom door. “Honey? Edwin says he knows where your ball is.”
“Where?” Gus wails.
“You’ll have to ask him, honey,” she goes. She comes back into the kitchen.
The bathroom door opens and Gus walks into the room. “You got it?” he asks.
“I think maybe Flake borrowed it,” I go. “I’ll get it from him.”
“Flake has it?” my dad asks.
“I think Flake borrowed it,” I go. “I’ll get it back,” I tell Gus. “I promise.”
“Now?” Gus asks.
“Not now,” I go. I’m so tired it’s like I can’t see. “When I come home from school.”
I finally get my books out of my locker before homeroom and somebody pokes me under the arm and tips them all over the floor.
“Congratulations,” Michelle says when I turn around. “I told you it was a great idea.”
“It wasn’t your idea,” Tawanda tells her. “It was how he did it.”
I assume they mean the tree with the heads. I start collecting books off the floor, and Dickhead goes by and golfs a paperback with his foot all the way down the hall. A few seventh-grade girls twist to avoid it as it sails by.
“What an asshole,” Michelle says, but when he turns on her she looks thrilled.
“What’re you gonna do about it?” he says to me.
“Oh, I got something in mind,” I go. I collect my other books and stand up.
“You got something in mind?” he goes.
“Mr. Lopez,” the vice principal says to him. “Come with me.”
Michelle and Tawanda make gloating noises. “Where you going, Edwin?” Tawanda says to me. “Don’t you be a stranger,” she calls when I’m almost at the other end of the hall, and Michelle laughs. “I got plans for you.”
Before third period I pass the gym. I pass the side door where we’re going to jam the wedge.
Before fourth period outside of math there’s a group of kids standing around laughing and making a lot of noise about a piece of paper. “Make Edwin take it,” one kid goes when I walk up. I can’t even get into the room.
This fat kid gets out of the way and Bethany’s behind him. “Here, Edwin,” she goes. She hands me a different piece of paper that’s folded into a thick triangle. On the outside somebody’s written Sex Test.
“Fischetti has the lowest score so far,” some kid behind her says.
“Let me see that,” Flake goes. He walks over from across the hall.
“No, no,” the fat kid says. “Don’t let him see it.”
Flake holds out his hand. Bethany smiles at him. “Roddy, tell Edwin we need him to fill this out,” she goes.
He looks at me like this is my fault.
“Hey, I don’t wanna do this,” I tell him.
He walks away. “Hey,” I call after him. The bell rings.
Bethany puts her hand on the sex test in my hand and leans closer. “This is for science,” she goes, and her friends laugh. Everybody heads to their classes. Some kids have to run.
We both go into math. I leave the sex test on my desk throughout the period. I don’t open it. The teacher comes down the aisle while somebody’s putting a problem on the board and scoops it up and looks at the title, then throws it in his waste-basket when he gets back to the front of the room.
Ms. Meier finds me in the lunchroom and hands me my copy of A Separate Peace. I left it in her classroom and apparently need it for the assignment tonight.
“How’d you know it was mine?” I ask her. I don’t remember writing my name in it.
“Who else would cross out the A and write No over it?” she goes.
“Mr. Hanratty,” the vice principal says, when I come out of the lunch line with my tray. “A minute of your time.”
“Now?” I go.